Set up your first week in Todowl
A start-to-finish guide to your first week in Todowl: create a project, lay out the board, turn on the calendar, and add one habit worth keeping.
Most of the value in a planning tool shows up once tasks, calendar and habits are actually connected - not on day one, when everything is still a blank screen. This guide walks through setting up one real week in Todowl, in order, so by Friday you have something worth keeping.
1. Create one project, not five
Start with a single project for “This week,” even if you eventually plan to split work and personal life apart. One project keeps the first week simple, and Todowl makes it easy to split things into more projects later once you know what actually needs its own space.
2. Lay out the board
Add three columns: To do, In progress, Done. Move every task you already know about into To do. Do not worry about ordering it perfectly - the point of the first pass is to get things out of your head and onto the board, not to plan the ideal week yet.
3. Turn on the calendar view
Switch to the calendar view for the same project. Any task with a due date shows up on its day automatically, color-coded so it is visually distinct from other projects once you add them. This is the moment the board stops being a list and starts being a schedule.
4. Add the tasks that do not have a home yet
Some things do not fit neatly on the board - a call at 2pm, a reminder to leave early on Thursday. Add those directly on the calendar instead of forcing them into the kanban columns; not everything needs to be a task card.
5. Write down what a meeting or a project actually needs
Open the notes editor for the project and write a short brief - what this week is actually about, in two or three sentences. It sounds unnecessary on day one. By day three, when you have forgotten why a task mattered, it is the fastest way back to the plan.
6. Pick exactly one habit
Do not start the habit tracker with five things - pick one habit that would make the week noticeably better if it stuck, and add only that one to the monthly grid. Mark it honestly each day. A single habit with a real streak is more useful than five habits with none.
7. Review on Friday, not Monday
At the end of the week, look at what moved to Done, what is still sitting in To do, and whether the one habit held. That fifteen-minute review is what turns “a tool I set up once” into a workflow you actually keep using the following Monday.